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The trait description for Undead states that "Undead creatures are damaged by positive energy, are healed by negative energy, and don't benefit from healing effects."
There is, additionally, a monster ability Negative Healing, which states that "It is damaged by positive damage and is not healed by positive healing effects. It does not take negative damage, and it is healed by negative effects that heal undead."
The Skeleton Guard, maybe the most basic of Undead creatures, has both the Undead trait and the Negative Healing monster ability. Is the monster ability necessary for the Skeleton Guard to work as described in the Undead trait, or is is the monster ability there as a sort of reminder?
I ask because in Sunday's session I ran an Undead monster that doesn't have the Negative Healing monster ability in its stat block. It never came up in the fight, so I didn't need to amke a call, but I'm curious what folks think.
The monster in question is
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Undead stating that they have negative healing isn't needed. It's a common redundancy like constructs stating they're immune to bleed.
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"Healed by negative energy" isn't really a thing in PF2. Rather certain abilities interact differently depending on your traits. Spells like Harm specifically heal Undead... and yes, an undead creature will be healed by a spell that heals undead, because it's undead.
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"Healed by negative energy" isn't really a thing in PF2.
Is is not? The Undead trait states that "Undead creatures . . . are healed by negative energy[.]"
The Negative trait states "Effects with this trait heal undead creatures with negative energy[.]
Spells like Harm specifically heal Undead...
Or is this simply another redundancy? It's not a case of the specific trumping the general, because the specific (the spell Harm) is reiterating the general (the Undead and Negative traits).
and yes, an undead creature will be healed by a spell that heals undead, because it's undead.
According to the Negative trait, an undead creature will be healed by any effect with the Negative trait. Though an exception would be made if the specific effect stated that it doesn't heal undead.
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I wish
Perhaps your wish is granted. The spell you linked is an effect with the Negative trait, and "Effects with this trait heal undead creatures with negative energy[.]"
This seems pretty straight-forward.
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Right.
Harm is a negative effect that heals undead. They are healed by it.
Sudden Blight only deals negative damage. Undead are not healed by it.
Similarly, positive damage doesn't heal the living, but positive healing does.
The linked spell there, Necrotic Radiation is another example of negative damage. It doesn't heal anything.
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Positive and Negative energy can do healing or do damage. But damage never heals and healing never damages.
Harm and Heal select whether to do healing or damage based on what type of creature is being targeted.
But abilities like Barbarian Spirit Instinct that can cause Positive damage can't be used to heal with.
Similarly, causing negative damage doesn't cause healing - even to undead. Undead are healed by negative energy, but only when it is negative healing energy.
Another spell to look at is Necromancer's Generosity. It can only be used for Negative Healing. It won't ever do damage - not even to living creatures if you could somehow target one with it.
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I think the confusion is that energy damage is still energy, and both the Negative and Undead traits use the term "negative energy" without differentiating between Negative Damage and Negative Healing.
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Yes. And so once more we have to divine intent of the rules and reject imprecise wordings in the rules here and there to get consistent rulings that we believe were the intent...
I mean not really, you just look at if a spell heals someone or not and if it does you heal them.
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Yeah, this feels more like edition confusion than actual rules confusion.
People are used to PF1 where there wasn't a distinction between negative damage and things that healed undead. So people are carrying that assumption over to the PF2 rules.
Nothing in PF2 says that undead are healed by negative damage.
Perhaps the wording of undead being healed by negative energy is unfortunately misleading, but it isn't wrong.
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Nothing in PF2 says that undead are healed by negative damage.
Multiple things say that negative energy heals undead. Negative damage is caused by negative energy. What says they are not healed by negative damage?
Would you similarly argue that energy resistance, say to Acid, does not apply to Acid damage?
That's why it's confusing enough for multiple threads.
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What says they are not healed by negative damage?
Damage Types, that specifies what positive and negative damage are and how they interact with both living and undead creatures.
Also the Negative Healing ability that describes different effects separately for negative damage and negative effects that heal.
And I am blatantly ignoring the strawman argument.
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Nothing in PF2 says that undead are healed by negative damage.Multiple things say that negative energy heals undead. Negative damage is caused by negative energy. What says they are not healed by negative damage?
Every ability that has to state that they are healed by a Negative and every ability that's Negative that doesn't specify it. This also works in reverse as Positive also says "Positive, Core Rulebook pg. 635, "Effects with this trait heal living creatures with positive energy, deal positive energy damage to undead, or manipulate positive energy." There would be NO reason to mention Heal heals as it'd be assumed. Why does Field of Life say "Each living creature that starts its turn in the area regains 1d8 Hit Points, and any undead creature that starts its turn in the area takes 1d8 positive damage" when it could just say 'creatures takes 1d8 positive damage' as your way would mean is the same thing.
Would you similarly argue that energy resistance, say to Acid, does not apply to Acid damage?
Apples and oranges as they are worded differently: Acid, Core Rulebook pg. 628, "Effects with this trait deal acid damage." The only thing it does for effects is tell you what kind of damage it does.
Positive and Negative energy can do healing or do damage. But damage never heals and healing never damages.
That is a commonly held rules interpretation but not an actual rule.
The problem is the:
1) Undead trait specifically says that that does happen,
2) Negative Healing rules are slightly different,
3) indivdual powers says specific things and are quite frankly all over the place,
4) individual powers don't seem to have all the right traits.
I choose to prioritise the Negative Healing rules as that is my choice to understand it. But the rules don't say to do that.
Why we need to read some information from Traits but not others to make sense of this game is a mystery. The rules are broken here.
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That is a commonly held rules interpretation but not an actual rule.
The problem is the:
1) Undead trait specifically says that that does happen,
2) Negative Healing rules are slightly different,
Again, the undead trait says that undead are healed by negative energy, not negative damage.
And the Negative Healing rules are my go-to place to indicate that negative damage and negative healing effects are treated differently by the game rules. Both negative damage and negative healing effects use negative energy, but they are different things.
Because if they aren't, then the same rules would apply to positive energy - where the Positive trait says that it heals the living and if no distinction between positive damage and positive healing effects is made, then Spirit Instinct Barbarians can go around punching their allies back to health.
Alright, so if negative damage can never heal, negative healing can never harm, positive damage can never heal, positive healing can never harm, then what happens to the party dhampir when their cleric friend casts a 3-action heal over everyone?
Asking for a friend playing a dhampir in PFS.
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The dhampir gets hurt. Don't 3 action Heal next to your undead-adjacent friends if you can avoid it.
Some people will say that the peculiar way Harm and Heal are written technically means they do nothing to dhampirs, and if you dig through these forums you can find pages of arguments about it. At the end of the day, though, the dhampir writeup says how they're intended to work, and those arguments are empty noise that's best disregarded.
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The dhampir gets hurt. Don't 3 action Heal next to your undead-adjacent friends if you can avoid it.
Some people will say that the peculiar way Harm and Heal are written technically means they do nothing to dhampirs, and if you dig through these forums you can find pages of arguments about it. At the end of the day, though, the dhampir writeup says how they're intended to work, and those arguments are empty noise that's best disregarded.
Dhampir is just specific versus general. Heal and Harm have specific rules, Dhampir have specific rules - including being treated as undead for these types of effects. But Dhampir are not generally Undead. I don't see that anyone doubts what happens to Dhampir in this case.
What is a problem is rules like:
Soothe which has the healing trait, not the positive or negative traits.
The intent is clear from the recent errata
Page 370: The soothe spell can now target “1 willing creature” instead of “1 willing living creature”. It can be used to heal undead, constructs, and so on
But there is no rule that says that. Instead the rule says.
don't benefit from healing effects
So despite specificlly looking into it recently Paizo have totally missed it again.
They are trying to allow unsigned healing for Undead but they haven't cleaned up their own traits.You wonder why people are confused and the issue keeps coming back.
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Yes, there are some problems with undead and negative healing - especially for player characters.
The distinction between damage and healing effects isn't one of them.
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Because if they aren't, then the same rules would apply to positive energy - where the Positive trait says that it heals the living
The Positive trait specifically mentions “life energy of such intensity that it can harm living creatures.” There is no such language regarding undead creatures in the Negative trait, so the two traits aren’t really “opposite” one another, and so the same rules needn’t apply. Positive effects explicitly can harm the living.
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Because if they aren't, then the same rules would apply to positive energy - where the Positive trait says that it heals the livingThe Positive trait specifically mentions “life energy of such intensity that it can harm living creatures.” There is no such language regarding undead creatures in the Negative trait, so the two traits aren’t really “opposite” one another, and so the same rules needn’t apply. Positive effects explicitly can harm the living.
The rules of the damage type say otherwise about positive damage.
"Two special types of energy damage specifically target the living and the undead. Positive damage harms only undead creatures, withering undead bodies and disrupting incorporeal undead. Negative damage saps life, damaging only living creatures." -CRB 451
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According to the Negative trait, an undead creature will be healed by any effect with the Negative trait. Though an exception would be made if the specific effect stated that it doesn't heal undead.
It doesn't say that. Not all negative effects heal in the first place.
Yes. And so once more we have to divine intent of the rules and reject imprecise wordings in the rules here and there to get consistent rulings that we believe were the intent...
There is no imprecise wording or ambiguous intent. A description of the types of things negative energy can do in no way contradicts a specific effect that does one of those things.
That's literally an example of a spell fitting that description.
Positive and Negative energy can do healing or do damage. But damage never heals and healing never damages.
That is a commonly held rules interpretation but not an actual rule.
The problem is the:
1) Undead trait specifically says that that does happen,
That is flat-out not true. It does not say that, specifically or otherwise.
It says effects with that trait can heal undead. It doesn't say they all do, and it certainly does not say "Whenever negative damage would be dealt to undead creatures, they heal an equal amount of Hit Points instead" or anything like it.
Positive and Negative energy can do healing or do damage. But damage never heals and healing never damages.
That is a commonly held rules interpretation but not an actual rule.
The problem is the:
1) Undead trait specifically says that that does happen,That is flat-out not true. It does not say that, specifically or otherwise.
It says effects with that trait can heal undead. /QUOTE]
You have inserted the CAN.It doesn't say they all do, and it certainly does not say "Whenever negative damage would be dealt to undead creatures, they heal an equal amount of Hit Points instead" or anything like it.
Yes I agree it doesnt go into any detail like that. It only implies something like that. Yes that would be a hangover from older systems.
Undead trait says something quite different than Negative Healing.
Negative Healing says what you want. Undead does not. That is the point I am making.
And yes for quite a few threads now I have been saying go with the Negative Healing interpretation. I just keep pointing out that Undead says something different.
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Yes, it mentions it... in the sentence, "Planes with this trait are awash with life energy of such intensity that it can harm living creatures."Because if they aren't, then the same rules would apply to positive energy - where the Positive trait says that it heals the livingThe Positive trait specifically mentions “life energy of such intensity that it can harm living creatures.” There is no such language regarding undead creatures in the Negative trait, so the two traits aren’t really “opposite” one another, and so the same rules needn’t apply. Positive effects explicitly can harm the living.
Glad I finished reading the thread before replying myself. I was about to say the same thing.
I would add to it,
Effects with this trait heal living creatures with positive energy,
But not all effects with the Positive trait do healing. Ones that don't do healing - don't heal.
And so the same should be said about the Negative trait and negative energy.
Also, effects with the negative trait that do healing and not damage, such as Oil of Unlife, don't do damage to the living either.